


Shred

by kimtristh



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 11:31:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimtristh/pseuds/kimtristh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will knows Hannibal can tell, he knows that he knew about <i>that</i> from their first meeting. <i>That</i>. He’s been doing it all his life and he still can’t call it for what it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shred

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rouxgarouxs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rouxgarouxs/gifts).



> Hopefully this won't feel contrived or flippant. It is a very difficult subject and very dear to my heart, so I hope it was done with the sensitivity and respect it deserves. If you find the subject of self-harm triggering, PLEASE don't read it, I aimed at not making it triggering, but Hannibal had other ideas so this could potentially be very triggering. Enjoy! xx

Will knows Hannibal can tell, he knows that he knows about _that_ from their first meeting. _That_. He’s been doing it all his life and he still can’t call it for what it is.

“Do you have any particular coping mechanisms, Will?,” the question hangs in the air again, harmless, psychological gibberish that asks something that the good Doctor already knows, that will help the patient discover something about themselves when they say it out loud.

“Dogs.” He replies dryly, he knows now Hannibal will explain how that’s not necessarily a coping mechanism, a go-to thing to deal with the world as much as Will’s very nature, his need for love – to give and receive it – and his protective instincts at work: a good thing for him, something inherent to him, something irreplaceable. Something like food or water, indispensable to his survival, not the equivalent of an emotional aspirin. Will would then want to argue that _that_ is more his nature than rescuing strays ever has been, but he would not say anything.

“Will, I would believe that by now we should be past the artful dodging of questions that you know I’m asking for your own good,” of course, Hannibal was also past the point where he pretended to believe Will when he feigned cluelessness. 

Will bites his tongue. He would love to speak up again, lie. But they are friends by now, aren’t they? That would be... rude.

“I...” he doesn’t know what he’s trying to say, maybe an apology or an explanation, something more adequate than a loud whimper for sure. He’s not crying, he’s used to far more stress and misery than this, but still, somehow, the imminent prospect of saying it out loud is leaving him feeling small and helpless. He doesn’t really like physical contact most of the times, but right now, he’d quite like to be held. He hopes Hannibal hasn’t noticed.

“When did you start?,” Hannibal asks as he stands up and drags a chair closer to the armchair that Will is currently using. He’s a good four feet away, but Will still feels suffocated by the closeness.

“I don’t know. Always – it’s always been there,” Will speaks hesitantly, his voice small and sad, but honest. He hopes that will be enough.

“I see. Do you perhaps have a recollection of how you started? Sometimes different approaches to remembering are more successful,” Hannibal offers, but the answer is again vague in Will’s mind. 

“Like what did I do or...?,” he is buying time, he feels like he’s a teenager again, like he’s a child. He can feel his language skills regressing. He has always felt everything with his entire being – the main curse of his so-called gift, that’s mostly why _that_ helped, he thinks. 

“If you feel that might help. I want you to try to share as much as you can, but I will not push you if you do not feel comfortable talking about certain things. Not yet anyway,” the gentle smile is familiar and it fills Will with that odd desire to fulfil his wishes, to cut himself open and expose his very core to the older man. He internally cringes and chuckles at his choice of not-words. 

“I’m afraid you won’t talk me into volunteering for vivisection, Doctor Lecter,” Will says, trying to regain his awkward sense of humour, his faux-confidence, and earning a smile from his psychiatrist that makes warmth travel down his body which has been numb since the subject was first brought up.

“It is a shame really, I have the suspicion you have outstandingly efficient internal organs, it would be delectable to see them at work” Will smiles then, he likes that Hannibal understands his jokes, that he always follows them up. Jokes are good. Friends who get your jokes are better. He realises he’s back to thinking in short sentences, it’s so hard to remain smart when you’re trying to not have an absolute meltdown in front of the only person who respects you nowadays.

“I hit my legs,” says Will in little more than a whisper, “and my arms.”

When he was little that was how it started. He would be upset and that would help, it would snap him out of it. When he was bad, it served to punish him. It worked on so many different levels and nobody had to know a thing. He would sneak into the bathroom and punch his legs over and over, he would make himself crash against the wall or the door on the way out. Sometimes he got bruises, but that was normal. Kids are reckless, kids play with others and hurt themselves and don’t realise because they’re having so much fun. The pain was dull and didn’t last long unless he deserved it. It worked. He moved on from fists to tools as he got older – paper weights, books, hammers – but it was still the same. It worked for as long as it worked and then he had to find a new thing – not that he ever stopped the punching, as the mottled bruises down his thighs would testify.

Hannibal nods, and Will steals a glance at his eyes, but the expression is still unreadable to him. He guesses that he should continue talking, so he does. He swallows hard and he feels more exposed than ever. More than when he talked about his parents, more than when he lost time and he had no idea what he ended up confessing to the older man. 

“I do things carelessly. Not like – not do them well just, without safety precautions. When I make fishing lures, I often pinch or cut or burn my fingers. When I cook, I grab the pots without mitts. When I read, I turn the pages far too quickly...” he looks up with a mischievous smirk, he always has found his pursuit of paper cuts funny, this time it seems not even Hannibal finds the humour in it. 

“You never struck me as one to avoid responsibility over the pain you feel, Will, I highly doubt the extent of your actions is limited to fists and luck,” Hannibal is stern, a hint of hurt? disappointment? hanging in his voice that makes Will start breathing heavily. He hates when he lets the older man down, he feels... dirty, the kind of dirty that not even the deepest cuts help clean up.

“Do you want to see the scars?,” he asks flatly, and he looks straight into Hannibal’s eyes. Defying him to say no, or yes, or anything. It has always been about how nobody else can take the magnitude of him, hasn’t it? Therapists more concerned about the reasons behind the way he thought, willing to kill it if it was needed as long as they didn’t have to understand it. As long as they didn’t have to feel everything the way he did so they could help him deal with it. Kids in the playground, classmates and even Jack. Even Alana. Yet Hannibal has taken everything he throws at him, he’s not sure what to make of that.

“If you would like to show me,” he answers and Will wants to scream, he wants to punch the older man, shove him and tell him that no, he doesn’t want to show him, he doesn’t want him to even know about it at all, but it’s not in his control, is it? Instead he pulls up a sleeve.

His arm is covered in lines, some are thin and pale, some are sunken and barely visible, some are raised and red. He has straight lines and curved lines, short lines that are barely scratches, short lines that were once very deep cuts. He has one long one that goes all the way from his elbow to his wrist, on the side, that one still has scabs on it, that one was from the night he killed Garrett Jacob Hobbs, that one hasn’t healed despite some cuts he got after have.

He pulls up his other sleeve, showing a similar pattern. Red and white lines, crossing paths and only really noticeable for what they are up close. The web of marks would not appear what it is if people weren’t paying attention, they might catch a scratch or two from afar but not the ruins of his arms for what they are.

“I also have some on my chest and my stomach, and my thighs. I have tried to stop cutting on my legs because my dogs...” he stops, His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, his throat closes, _no more words_ , they say. Still he manages to sneak one last phrase past his sealed lips “they’re so ugly.”

Hannibal extends his hands towards him and for a second Will fears he will touch him, that he will trace his fingers down the raised lines, the fresher cuts but he also wants him to. Instead he offers his hand to him, he lets it hang in front of him until Will realises what he is trying to do and takes it in his. Only after he has grasped his hand and offered a sad smile to him, does the good Doctor speak again. 

“On the contrary, my dear Will, I would argue they are quite beautiful. A testament to both your survival and ability to heal, wouldn’t you agree?” The sentence is certainly not what he expected the older man to say, and no, he wouldn’t agree. These are not battle wounds, these are not noble marks. This is him being weak, and weird, and ugly. But he doesn’t say anything, instead he launches himself and wraps his arms around the solid frame of his friend, and feels immensely stupid immediately after. He doesn’t say anything for the rest of the hour.

Hannibal says more things that he doesn’t remember, something about never touching your body with bad intentions, and something else about how he should show off his scars with pride. He tells him again that they are beautiful, he tells him again that he would like to see him cut open over a table. He tells him he can stop doing this whenever he wants, and he tells him he shouldn’t stop if he doesn’t want to. He tells him that he knows Will knows where to cut to not make permanent damage, he tells him to keep going that way.

He drives home and he doesn’t speak at all for what feels like a full day. Not even to his dogs, not even to Winston. When his phone rings, he doesn’t pick up.

The next morning as he dries off after a shower, he sees the blade that he does not use to shave. One part of his brain tells him “he called you beautiful”, another part calls him pathetic for jumping to an embrace. 

Both parts tell him to cut above his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at the [Hannibal Exchange](http://hannibal-exchange.dreamwidth.org/5754.html)
> 
> Prompt: Any self-harm related fic would be my first choice. Maybe Will dealing current or past self harming behaviors (especially cutting) due to the immense stress he is under and Hannibal confronting him in any way the author chooses.


End file.
